Well, there was a govt mandated plan for a FTTH network (the NBN, a multi-billion dollar project), so providers stopped building stuff about a year before the build started in preparation. That set us back a little, but not much.

However, about 1 year into the build, said govt got elected out. New govt redesigned things so it'll now be mostly FTTN (so last part will be copper), cos it would supposedly be cheaper and faster to deploy (called the MTM or multi technology mix). They also claimed our budget was in an emergency crisis (during the middle of a mining boom I might add) so we needed to save money.

Time frame has blown out massively. Almost a year was added just through the redesign and contract renegotiations, during which existing builds didn't halt, but they definitely slowed dramatically, and new build areas were put on hold where possible. The extra contracts have cost more money as well, plus all the extra tech required to manage not only FTTH but FTTN & Cable (they are buying access into local cable networks to speed up deployment), has made the system much more complex and costly to deploy and manage.

On top of all that, due to Australia being a very large place with a sparse population, a large portion of ADSL users are >1.5km from the exchange/DSLAM (copper distance), with 2.5km probably being about the median. All in all the first plan was much better. *sigh*

(11-20-2015, 09:52 PM)cefiar Wrote: Connection speed doesn't always determine anything in relation to gameplay. Ping tends to be more annoying for Xon, tho it depends on the game settings, game mode and the player.

Being stuck in Australia, you get used to 200+ms pings to the US servers and simply forgetting about using the EU servers.

Incorrect Marge, TWO perfectly good jackets! I play on EU all the time, with 350 ping and massive PL spikes. But I'm special that way. My current crappy "cable" connection:

Old house had the NBN FTTH fibers with about 98mb down, 45 up. Why'd I move???
It had a super low ping (like, 2ms?) and non-existent jitter so even with almost no reduction in ping abroad, playing in EU was a lot more bearable because at least it was smooth and consistently behind rather than chunky and stuttery.

Next house is slated for a "hybrid" cable/fiber deployment later this year... no idea what that translates into speed. We shall see.